The obvious go-to question as of 10:31 PM EDT tonight: who "won" (or benefitted most from) tonight's U.S. Presidential debate?

I thought Kerry held his own, not making any obvious gaffes and at least alleviated fears some people might have had that this man might not be "Presidential" material. I thought he also did a fair job of delineating where his and Bush's views on Iraq part company: the ultimate goals are fundamentally the same, but the approach to achieve these is very different. I think he missed a number of opportunities to give a pointed response which might have further differentiated his views.

To me, the President seemed a bit unfocused in many of his responses, answering too generally with facts related to the question but not necessarily answering the question. He also just kept coming back to the same tired lines about how we're marching toward freedom/victory/success/whatever as if the more he repeats these things, the more true they will be. But I was impressed toward the end during the discussion about multilateral vs. bilateral talks with North Korea -- he seemed to know a lot more about what he was talking about and backed up his convictions well.

I can't say who "won" the debate, but I think Sen. Kerry gained a lot more from the event in the eyes of undecided voters.

I still think the shrub will win the election.....the economy will continue to tailspin and America will be a less safe place to live in.

In 2008 the Dems will sweep to power for 15 - 20 years. Let us all hope the rest of the world is still around to enjoy that.
Posted by Swiss Mercenary (Member # 330) on October 01, 2004, 02:53:

quote:Originally posted by Cap'n Vic:In 2008 the Dems will sweep to power for 15 - 20 years. Let us all hope the rest of the world is still around to enjoy that.

Nah, watch Dubya change the Constitution so that he can have unlimited terms and set up a Republican dictatorship. Posted by greycat (Member # 945) on October 01, 2004, 05:10:

They both held their ground very well, I thought. Of course, the whole thing was planned out from the beginning, there was just one topic, and neither of them has a radical approach to it. So there wasn't a lot for them to disagree on, really.

I really liked Kerry's speaking style and body language. He's very clear and direct. Watch how his hands make little chopping motions when he dissects a problem and presents his answer to it.

Bush came across as a lot more articulate than most people give him credit for, but he had a few moments where he was "stumped" by (or had to think about) a question for a couple seconds. When this happens, his face goes totally blank.

Funniest moment in the debate for me was when Kerry repeated nuclear proliferation twice in a row. It's as if he were rubbing in the fact the he can pronounce it correctly. (Bush kept saying nucular.)
Posted by magefile (Member # 2918) on October 01, 2004, 05:19:

quote:He also just kept coming back to the same tired lines about how we're marching toward freedom/victory/success/whatever as if the more he repeats these things, the more true they will be.

"And it's hard work! It's hard, and there are some good people working hard to make it work!"

Like in Bedazzled: "Y'just wanna go out there, and do your best, and give 110%, and do good, and I think we went out there and did our best, and we gave 110% and we did good.
Posted by MTB Babe (Member # 2297) on October 01, 2004, 06:30:

Bush was/is a total moron. I believe his answers were very inarticulate and danced around the questions instead of answering them. He kept focusing on Kerry's 'inconsistency' without backing up his accusation. His answers were rife with 'um's' and 'uhhh's'. I don't understand how anyone could vote for this numbskull. No offense.

If he wins I'm moving to Canada Posted by spungo (Member # 1089) on October 01, 2004, 06:38:

I never realized how tech-savvy Democrats were. First Al Gore invents the internet and now John Kerry is responsible for the flip-flop? (Or maybe this is a new 'LogicGate' scandal? )
Posted by spungo (Member # 1089) on October 01, 2004, 06:39:

quote:Originally posted by MTB Babe: If he wins I'm moving to Canada

Why not move to the UK? We have a 'rear of the year' award, you know. Posted by ripcrd6 (Member # 146) on October 01, 2004, 07:04:

Couple of points:Jimmy Carter, who was a nuclear engineer, couldn't pronounce it correctly. It's a soutern accent problem. I can pronounce it correctly, will you elect me?

The chopping hand motions are a Clinton affectation. Gore did it too. I could care less about hand motions. You ever watch American Idol? See everyone doing the same hand things to draw the audience in? They get training on it, because it works on the weak minded. I find it manipulative. I had Persuasive Speech and Group Dynamics in college and they taught us these and other Jedi mind tricks.

The last president to sit for more than 2 terms was Roosevelt, a Democrat. http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/fdrbio.htmlWe now have rules limiting the president to 2 terms so that he doesn't gain too much power. I don't feel like looking up to see if it is a law or an amendment to the constitution. I do know that it would not be a simple task to change. There are other checks and balances that prevent a dictatorship, one of them is gun ownership by the citizenry.

Kerry sounded very confident in himself. Too confident. He seems to think he is some superhero that can accomplish in 4 years, what Clinton couldn't do in 8 and what took roughly 50 in Germany. The president is right that we will be in Iraq for 6-10 years, or at least in the area. There are some normal, kind people over there and they are being run over by the scumbags who think they have the god-given right to blow up those that don't believe as they do. Look into the Iraq Linux User Group if you want to find an example of the GOOD in Iraq. N. Korea has been a problem since the 50s and Kerry thinks he can solve it in 4 years. Yeah right. That cocky bastard will muck up the work of the current and previous 2 administrations. In the process he will get China pissed and all the other nations in the area that we are friendly with. He'd blow 6 alliances to make one with the guys no one likes. His cavalier attitude and flippant remarks make me worry that if he becomes president, we will be in more war than we are now.

If anybody is thinking draft, remember it was Democrat Charlie Rangel that started that idea floating and he wants it. Kerry also mentioned last night that he wants 2 new divisions and lots of military spending. He just wants to wait to approve the funding until it is good for him and not the soldiers. What a moron.

I could go on, but I can see there are a bunch of closed ears here already. /lurk mode on.
Posted by magefile (Member # 2918) on October 01, 2004, 07:14:

If you think that civilians have (or can obtain, even ignoring legal issues) enough weapons to overthrow the US gov't, I want some of what you're smoking.
Posted by spungo (Member # 1089) on October 01, 2004, 07:50:

quote:Originally posted by ripcrd6: The president is right that we will be in Iraq for 6-10 years...

Then why, pray tell, did the son-of-a-bitch smugly announce the end of the war way back in 2003, just weeks after the land invasion began? The only explanation is that the Whitehouse failed to foresee the ongoing insurgent threat that dogs their triumph. In other words, Bush had no f*cking clue how things would pan out - in which case he should have told Rumsfeld to shut the F*&k up when ol' Donnie gleefully jumped to his feet on 9/11, saying that this was their golden chance to move in on Iraq and secure those lucrative reconstruction contracts.
Posted by Tech Angel (Member # 908) on October 01, 2004, 09:08:

quote:Originally posted by ripcrd6:I could go on, but I can see there are a bunch of closed ears here already. /lurk mode on.

Not "closed ears", just predisposed to a certain point of view... no different than yourself, I gather. But then again, 4 of 5 voters this year feel the same way.

I just wish we had a better selection of viable candidates to rally behind -- not just the ones chosen for us by the two major political parties.
Posted by TMBWITW,PB (Member # 1734) on October 01, 2004, 10:09:

The debate was really decided for me in the first few minutes when Bush said that "we must be constantly on the offensive." I don't want to go to war against every country in the world by the time we're done.

I did enjoy at the end of the debate when they were complimenting each other's service, family, and accomplishments. I got the feeling that they could almost be friends and they know not to take any of this personally because it's politics.
Posted by Erbo (Member # 199) on October 03, 2004, 01:57:

I've been buzzing through the news sites and blogs trying to get a feel for how the debate was evaluated, but opinions are all over the map on this one.

Best consensus I can come up with is that this debate was probably a small win for Kerry...which means it was effectively a draw. (An actual draw would have been a net loss for Kerry.) He may stop his slide for a little while, and his supporters have been re-energized, but the essential dynamic hasn't changed. And pretty soon, I'm sure Kerry will be putting his other foot in his mouth, and shooting himself in it. (Overconfidence over his debate "win" may be a factor here.) Meanwhile, he's handed the Republicans a few choice lines they can use to attack him, whereas Bush didn't give much away.

The Veep debate on Tuesday should be good. I'm thinking that Cheney will just take apart the Breck Girl. Age before beauty! (And remember, sometimes the Veep debates have produced the most memorable lines; consider Lloyd Bentsen's "you're no Jack Kennedy" line in 1988, and James Stockdale's "hearing aid" line in 1992.)
Posted by Twinkle Toes (Member # 1208) on October 03, 2004, 04:06:

Well I don't have a side in this. I have opinions, but if I were old enough to vote, I wouldn't.

While Kerry did support his rebuttals towards Bush's statements well, he still witheld information of specific plans he would enact in his presidency... He's always mentioning this 'plan' he has in his campaign commercials but never says anything about it. Another thing I didn't like was his concern for pulling the troops out of Iraq whether their problem of acting as an independent (strong), orderly country is fixed or not.

Though he did pause a lot, I thought Bush did a better job of speaking this time. But this could mean nothing, I suppose, if what greycat said about it being planned is true. Among other poor decisions, Bush sending practically all of the troops to Iraq instead of Afghanistan is the thing that bugs me the most about him, and... well, just see Fahrenheit 9/11 for the rest.
Posted by Twinkle Toes (Member # 1208) on October 03, 2004, 04:12:

Oh, and about Kerry's hand gestures: I didn't really notice them (I can remember him doing that chopping motion a bit now), but I suppose it could very well be a Democrat thing. He also does the advancing-of-the-thumb thing that Clinton did.
Posted by -ct- (Member # 209) on October 03, 2004, 14:19:

For example, Kerry complains of the waste of $200 billion spent on the Iraq war.He also says he wouldn't cut funding, he'd increase it to "whatever it takes to win"

This is not a flip-flop, this is simply saying, "This war was unnecessary, the resources could have been put to better use elsewhere, but now that we are in, let's not stuff it up by trying to do it on the cheap".

Frankly, I think he's barking up the wrong tree there. The USA could send 5 times as many troops, and they'd simply be providing 5 times as many targets to the resistance, but there's no flip-flop evident in the Kerry quotes on the video.

The same thing goes for his "no country will have a veto on our nations defence" vs "Bush should have behaved in a way that encouraged our allies to cooperate" statement. The first is a simple motherhood statement, no country would ever give another country such a veto. The second is an acknowledgement that Bush's "yer either with us or yer with the terrorists" bullshit has alienated many of the USAs traditional allies, and that a more cooperative approach would have been beneficial to US interests. No flip-flop there.

It seems to me that what the Republicans decry as Kerrys 'flip-flops' is simply a man with a 3-digit IQ who has the ability to see the complexity of the issues. 2-digit George sees everything in simple black-and-whites.
Posted by -ct- (Member # 209) on October 03, 2004, 14:42:

If you ask me, I'd call that a 'flip-flop' post...
Posted by Cap'n Vic (Member # 1477) on October 03, 2004, 17:15:

-ct-

Don't you see the irony in the fact that you seem to support the right wing who is currently in power, but you admit to being unable to find gainful employment.

Why would you give a job to shrub, when he takes a job away from you?
Posted by greycat (Member # 945) on October 04, 2004, 05:24:

In other news, the probability of someone being a Bush supporter seems to be inversely proportional to his or her IQ. (There are a few exceptions, of course... that's why it's called a probability. I have to include that disclaimer so the Bush supporters will understand.)
Posted by spungo (Member # 1089) on October 04, 2004, 05:38:

But Cap'n - do you really think Kerry's a sharp-shooter enough to protect us against the evil over thar in Terrorstan? The West needs a straight-talker: a man with no name who rides into town with a rancher's swagger and a slick holster. Nobody but George "Let's head'em off at the Khyber pass" Bush can do what a man's gotta do. Why, he's like Gary Cooper, Josey Wales and the Duke all rolled into one. I can't see the Flip-Flop kid saying "Step out of that cave for a second, pilgrim", can you?
Posted by greycat (Member # 945) on October 04, 2004, 06:24:

quote:Originally posted by Erbo:The Veep debate on Tuesday should be good.

The VP candidate debate is happening at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, tomorrow night. CWRU campus is about a half hour walk from where I'm sitting right now (at work).

If it's at all possible, I'm going to join in the protest march (the anti-war, anti-imperialism one) that evening. The campus is basically closed off to traffic, but I think that if I just park in my normal spot here at work and walk over, I should be able to make it there intact. (Assuming, of course, that I don't get arrested along the way for speaking outside of the "free speech" zone.)
Posted by ooby (Member # 2603) on October 04, 2004, 07:18:

I was at the They Might Be Giants show thursday night and They pointed out that the debate was on and the show was sold out. They refrained from political commentary during the show except when they sang a song about a president who did so much but only was in office for one term. Also, they promoted the moveon cd.

Also, Jon Stewart pointed out that nobody votes for a vice president.
Posted by Erbo (Member # 199) on October 04, 2004, 10:05:

quote:Originally posted by ooby: I, was at the They Might Be Giants show thursday night and They pointed out that the debate was on and the show was sold out.

Oddly enough, I was also at a concert on the night of the debate; I won't name the group that was playing here to keep a certain trio from getting annoyed with me. (The group in question didn't say anything about politics at their show.)

quote:Also, Jon Stewart pointed out that nobody votes for a vice president.

quote:Latest Poll Shows 49% for Bush, 49% for Kerry. In other news, 49% of US voters are morons

Kinda pokes fun at how each side considers the other, sans kinda.
Posted by greycat (Member # 945) on October 04, 2004, 12:25:

Jon Stewart is wrong. A whole lot of people voted against George H. W. Bush & Dan Quayle, using the following reasoning: If Bush gets assassinated... oh my god, we'd have Dan "potatoe" Quayle as the president!Posted by The Famous Druid (Member # 1769) on October 04, 2004, 15:16:

quote:Originally posted by greycat: Jon Stewart is wrong. A whole lot of people voted against George H. W. Bush & Dan Quayle, using the following reasoning: If Bush gets assassinated... oh my god, we'd have Dan "potatoe" Quayle as the president!

Ah, but the Republicans found a way of countering that effect, run the 'potatoe' guy for prez instead. Posted by The Famous Druid (Member # 1769) on October 04, 2004, 19:45:

This is a prime example of how zealots will beat-up the tiniest non-story to attack their opponents.

The guy clearly took something out of his pocket and placed it on the podium.

How do we make a story out of that?

Well, we start with a headline"DID KERRY HAVE CHEAT SHEET?"

Next, we carefully fail to consider any other possible explanation. What did he take from his pocket? It could have been his glasses, his wallet, his mobile phone, his handkerchief, his lucky rabbits-foot. But let's not mention any of that, we'll leave 'cheat-sheet' as the only option under consideration.

We then lace the story with lots of innuendo, state that he removed the item "with his back to the auditoriums audience". The video shows that while he had his back to the audience at the beginning of the motion, he was clearly facing the audience and the adjudicator by the end of it. The audience would have seen him place the object on the podium, and he did the whole thing in clear view of the TV camera that he knew was there. There's no hint of subterfuge in his action, and no way he could possibly have hoped his actions would go unseen, but the 'back to the audience' line clearly sets the tone - the guy had something to hide.

We'll also mention the fact that several seconds later he's seen handling what may have been a piece of paper. Blank paper and pens are allowed under the rules, they were placed there by the debate organisers, but by mentioning the presence of paper, we'll fool the gullible into assuming this is what was removed from his pocket earlier.

Oh, and don't forget to reproduce the section of the rules that forbid cheat-sheets - remember - we haven't established that it was a cheat-sheet, but quoting the rules reinforces the whole presumption of guilt tone of the article.

And make sure everyting is phrased as a question, so that your victims lawyers can't take your house and car. You haven't told any lies, you've just asked a few innocent questions.

Speaking of flip flops, look over here. Shrub is the king of flip flops.
Posted by dragonman97 (Member # 780) on October 04, 2004, 20:58:

quote:Originally posted by Cap'n Vic: Speaking of flip flops, look over here. Shrub is the king of flip flops.

That's beautiful, man. Now, if only for the fact that I would get my ass kicked, there are a few people I'd like to give that to...
Posted by Cap'n Vic (Member # 1477) on October 04, 2004, 22:41:

Print out the poster and leave it in a easy to find place. In the coffee room, bathroom wall or windshield of their car. Posted by dragonman97 (Member # 780) on October 05, 2004, 10:06:

I know, I saw the poster - what do you do you think I meant when I said "if not for getting my ass kicked..."?
Posted by greycat (Member # 945) on October 05, 2004, 19:10:

I made it to the protest and back again without any problems. Except that I forgot to bring my Cleveland Clinic ID badge with me (D'OH!) so I couldn't park where I expected to. But I managed to find a free parking space in a park somewhere on or near the north side of the CWRU campus, about 15 minutes from the gathering point. After that everything went really well. I don't have all the photos in place yet. But just for a teaser, here's one of the best ones:

It's straight out of the camera, just renamed. I want to put together a page of the photos once I've had a chance to crop them and organize them a bit. That'll have to wait.
Posted by Cap'n Vic (Member # 1477) on October 05, 2004, 19:24:

Nice pic! Pretty cool web site they have too! Posted by greycat (Member # 945) on October 06, 2004, 06:03:

I'm pretty happy with most of the photos, especially the early ones (while the sun was up). My camera doesn't do nearly as well after dark, and the flash ruins people's faces. The young lady in photo 046, for example, was quite pretty in real life... but that photo doesn't do her justice.

There were a few cases where I was trying to get a particular sign, but it was turned or blocked at the last moment (especially number 041). And I don't have a clue what number 056 was supposed to be.

The sign in number 021 was mine. Same on both sides. Small, but simple... and I had a long stick, so I could hold it above other signs.